Your first karate class as an adult

The short version: turn up in tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt, you do not need a gi, and expect basics and correction rather than fighting. The one thing worth checking beforehand is which style of karate the club teaches, because a Kyokushin club and a Shotokan club will give you quite different first nights and the timetable will say "Karate" either way.

That is the part almost nobody mentions, because nearly everything written about starting karate is written by a dojo about its own classes, and each of them teaches one style and assumes you already know which. Karate is not one sport. It is a family of them sharing a name, a uniform and a belt system, and the differences are larger than you would guess from outside. Knowing which one you have booked is the difference between a first night that suits you and one that does not.

Which karate have you actually booked

There are four or five styles you are likely to meet, and one distinction matters more than the rest on a first night: how much contact they use.

Kyokushin and its offshoots are full contact. Sparring is bare-knuckle to the body and legs, with no punches to the head, and it is demanding. The people who train it love it for exactly that reason, and it is worth going in knowing that is what you have chosen.

Shotokan is the largest style in the world and the one most likely to be running in your local sports hall. Long stances, a strong emphasis on kihon and kata, and sparring that is usually controlled and point-scored rather than a fight.

Goju-ryu, Wado-ryu and Shito-ryu sit between the two in different ways, with more close-range work, more evasion, or a larger kata syllabus respectively. For a beginner these differences are subtler than the contact question.

You can settle this in a minute. The style is almost always named on the club's website or on the association badge in their photos. If it is not, the question worth asking is not "what style are you" but "do beginners spar, and how hard?" That is the one whose answer shapes your evening.

A club or a school, and why it matters

The other split has nothing to do with karate. It is about how the place is run.

A large share of karate happens at volunteer-run clubs training in leisure centres, church halls and school gyms two or three nights a week, often led by an instructor with a day job. The rest happens at commercial dojos with their own premises, daytime staff and a fuller timetable.

Neither is better, and the coaching at a good club is often better than at a mediocre commercial school. But they feel different and it helps to know which you are joining. The club will usually be cheaper, more informal and very social, and it will run fewer sessions, sometimes two adult nights, occasionally in a hall shared with a badminton league. The commercial dojo will have more classes, better facilities and a structured beginners programme, and will cost more.

Either way, ask about the adult timetable specifically rather than the timetable as a whole. Karate clubs run a median of nine classes a week, among the fewest of any art we counted when we looked at what gym timetables actually contain, and a good share of those nine will be the children's classes. Ask how many nights the adult class runs. If the answer is two, that is a perfectly good twice-a-week hobby, but it is better to know before you plan around three.

What actually happens in the hour

Most first sessions follow a similar shape, and knowing it in advance is most of what makes a first night comfortable.

You will line up in grade order, with the highest belts at one end and you at the other. There will be a formal opening: kneeling, a moment of stillness, a bow to the front of the room and to the instructor. Then the class itself, which is usually built from three things.

Kihon is basics, practised in lines, and it takes up a good share of a beginner's session. You move up and down the floor repeating a block, a punch, a step, with the instructor correcting the angle of your foot. Kata is a set sequence performed solo, which most people find either absorbing or baffling for a while. Kumite is sparring, and on a first night you will most likely watch rather than do it. Many clubs also run partner drills and pad work alongside these.

Karate teaches by repetition more than most martial arts, and that is worth knowing going in. If you have come from a gym where every session is different, the rhythm takes some adjusting to. It is also the thing a lot of karateka end up valuing most, because it is where the precision comes from, and doing it in unison with thirty other people has a quality that is hard to describe until you have done it.

Three things tend to surprise adults on a first night. You will be expected to shout, since karate uses a sharp shout on committed techniques. The class will count in Japanese, ichi, ni, san, and you are expected to join in from session one and get it wrong for a while. And you will bow toward the front of the room, often at a photograph of the style's founder, which is a mark of respect for the lineage rather than anything religious. None of it is difficult. It is just easier when you are expecting it.

You will also be corrected a lot, immediately and in front of people. That is how the room works and it is not criticism. And you will be at the end of the line, which is the right place to be, because you can see what everyone else is doing.

The etiquette worth knowing in advance

Karate is more formal than most martial arts and the formality starts at the door. None of it is hard, and knowing it beforehand is the difference between feeling out of place and feeling welcome.

Bow when you step onto the mat or into the dojo, and again when you leave. Shoes off before you reach the training area. Take off jewellery, cut your nails, tie long hair back. Do not walk between someone and the front of the room while they are bowing. Arrive early rather than on time, since joining after the formal opening has its own small ritual.

Address the instructor by title rather than by name unless you are told otherwise. And go carefully with osu, the all-purpose acknowledgement you will have heard in videos. It is standard in Kyokushin and in many Japanese dojos, and it is considered incorrect in a number of traditional Okinawan clubs. Rather than importing it, listen to what the people around you say and follow that.

That is the general rule for a first night, and it works for all of it. Watch the person next to you and do what they do half a second later. Everyone in the room learned it exactly that way, and most of them will remember doing it.

What to wear, and what to buy later

Tracksuit bottoms or leggings, a plain t-shirt, bare feet. That is everything you need.

You do not need a gi to start, and buying one in advance is usually a false economy, because clubs differ on weight, cut and whether an association badge is required. Ask what they expect and when they expect it. Some run a beginners course with a gi included, some are happy for you to train in ordinary kit for several weeks, and a few will want you in one sooner.

When you do commit, there are three costs rather than one. There is the class fee, a gi that you buy once, and usually an annual licence through whichever association the club belongs to, plus a fee each time you grade. None of these is large on its own, and karate is among the cheaper martial arts to train overall. Ask what a typical year comes to including gradings, rather than only the monthly fee. A club that answers that clearly is telling you something useful about itself.

Grading rhythm is worth asking about at the same time. Karate has a long ladder of coloured kyu belts, so progress tends to be visible early, which many adults find motivating compared with jiu-jitsu where a first promotion typically takes a couple of years. How often gradings come round varies a lot by club and association, so ask rather than assume.

Whether you are too old or too unfit

You are almost certainly neither, and the useful version of that answer is about what karate asks of you.

It is one of the easier martial arts to start with no fitness base, because for most of a session you set your own intensity. Nobody is putting their weight on you and you are not being taken down, which is where a lot of the wear in jiu-jitsu and judo comes from. The soreness in your first couple of weeks will be in your legs, from stances holding positions they have not held before, and it settles quickly. Blocking drills involve forearm-to-forearm contact, so a bit of bruising early on is normal and stops being noticeable once you adapt.

That combination is why karate has so many people who have trained it for twenty or thirty years, and why clubs routinely take on beginners in their forties and fifties.

The thing that actually decides whether people keep going is not age or fitness. It is evenings. We wrote about what training around a full-time job really costs if you want the arithmetic before you commit to a night a week.

What to ask before you start

Five questions, and you can send all of them in one message.

Which style do you teach, and do beginners spar. How many nights a week does the adult class run. Is there a beginners course, or do I join the main class. Can I come and try a session. And what does a typical year cost, including gradings and licence.

Those five will tell you more than any amount of reading, and the way they are answered tells you almost as much as the answers. A club that replies "two adult nights, we spar light, come Tuesday and see" is one worth visiting. If you want to compare a few first, our directory lists karate clubs with their published timetables where they have one, so you can see which ones run on the nights you are actually free.